a flower field
by piston heart
Summary: Squall still wakes up screaming. —SquallRinoa, after.


**A/N: **My Rinoa muse is very fickle and has a fondness for run-on sentences, semicolons, and lots of blather. Nevertheless, this isn't _too _bad.

**Warnings: **Implied spoilers for the ending of the game~

**Disclaimer: **Nope, I don't own.

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**a flower field  
**

Squall still wakes up choking, chest heaving, fingernails digging into the mattress and her skin. Rinoa knows that he's seeing a different Sorceress, a different face; trading brown eyes for gold, white wings for black. She holds him in her arms as he claws at her, whispering sweet things and singing lullabies, the ones her mothers used to. Rinoa was scared of the dark once. Now she knows that there's much worse things out there than the night. She knows how hurtful emptiness can be, how quickly ice can devour and chill a heart; until the day she dies, she will remember the negative space, the sand Squall was sitting on, watching a white feather drift downwards. Perhaps that feather represented her, or perhaps it represented hope. Perhaps.

_Perhaps_ isn't something you can rely on, though. Perhaps leaves a lot of room open._ Too _much room open, all gap-toothed and smiling sickly at her, because sometimes _she's _the one with nightmares. Sometimes she wakes up screaming, tasting blood and bile where she's bitten her tongue, and magic is ricocheting through her veins. She sees time, like a fishing net, hanging in the air; fate spinning gold and white and black, and her own powers burn at her fingertips._ It hurts,_ she wants to cry, a lost little girl with big eyes red from crying and a certain clumsiness about her legs, her skinned knees awkward. It hurts, all spoiled and rotten to the core, blind eyes bored and seeking a rebellion, not caring who you hurt or what you damage in the way. But now you care. (And they say you changed Squall. No, he changed you; he made you realize, somewhere in between Time Compression and ballroom dances, that you don't always get your way, or that you shouldn't if you do.)

The boys, back 'home', used to fight. At eleven, she would see them in the square; nose bloodied, lips split, their thighs patterned purple and yellow, proving themselves. She thought it was worthless. What was the worth of fighting, if it only brought pain? What was the worth of fighting, if it was all in vain?

But she's fighting a losing battle here, over ground that's hers. That's what Squall is; not a posession, no, but Rinoa's accepted she couldn't function without him. So is the nature of a Knight and a Sorceress; so is the nature of love, tethering one to the other. She likes to think he wouldn't be able to either, and she knows it's true. Once she would have done it just for the fun of having a pretty boy wrapped around her fingers. This is different; this is living and breathing; this is what makes men bleed and scream and it's _love. _It's what they sell to children in fairy tales and to older generations in superficial romance novels, ones she's guilty of reading; it's Valentine's Day and saints burning. Love is all that and _not. _Love is—

_"I'll be here."_

_"Why?"_

_"I'll be_— _waiting_— _here... "_

_"For what?"_

_"I'll be waiting for you... so... If you come here... You'll find me."_

_"I promise."_

Love is a flower field. The flower field withers in winter and blooms bright and vibrant in the spring, showing off its true colors. Love is waiting. Love is damsels and witches and sea and space; love is time, and love is fighting when your love is going insane.

None of her usual remedies are working tonight. The lullabies aren't lulling him, the sweet things aren't calming him, and Rinoa is running out of options. She frowns and thinks, wondering if this is the end. Has he finally gone berserk? Will he start frothing at the mouth and—

_No, _she thinks, more firmly than she feels, _Tonight's not that night, and tomorrow won't be either. Or the day after that, or the one following. You just need to get a little innovative, and you can handle that. _

It doesn't hit her like a bolt of lightning, or anything like that. It comes to her easily and she smiles, leaning towards Squall so their hair falls together.

"Squall," she says, sotto voce, as if she's telling a secret. "I love you."

His muscles spasm once more, underneath her hand, and then he relaxes. Breathing hard, he slumps into her. She repeats it in her mind. _I love you, _through the link between their minds.

_I love you, _and it's returned, hesitant but not unsure.

_Thank you, _they say in surprising unity.

In the darkness, Rinoa eases back onto the mattress, their limbs tangled. Neither of them need to be afraid; they just need to realize it.

_Good night, _she whispers, and falls into a dream of flower fields.

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**A/N: **Just a tiny little ficlet, written in about fifteen minutes. :3

_Feedback appreciated!_


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